A Controversial Ranking of the Nine Quentin Tarantino Movies

 

Just what it sounds like, ranking the works of Tarantino. Him keeping count of his movies kind of elevates all of them, like numbering WrestleManias. Looking forward to the tenth and final one, Kill Beatrix or whatever it ends up being called. Actually, "Kill The Bride" has a clever ring to it from a marketing perspective.

In b4 everyone finds out this weirdo spent a bunch of time on an island

Honorable Mentions:

-True Romance. He wrote the screenplay for this one, but didn't direct it, so it isn't one of his nine movies.

-From Dusk Till Dawn. He sucked on Salma Hayek's feet in this one.

Note: Before this list, I'd seen everything except Death Proof. However, I hadn't seen Django Unchained, Jackie Brown, or Reservoir Dogs in full, only in pieces (usually missing the first act, due to television). So I watched all four to place them on here correctly. Jackie Brown in particular I think I missed a lot of, so it really needed a rewatch. Finally I wrapped up with a first-time watch of Death Proof.

#10. Reservoir Dogs (1st) - The first full-fledged Tarantino movie, this one is very well-liked and set the tone for everything that followed. Me, though... this movie has just never really done much for me. I've only seen it in bits and pieces over the years, until recently, and it had very few redeeming qualities for me on this recent watch. Harvey "The Wolf" Keitel is good as always. The main drama is wondering who the undercover cop is in the group of mobsters, and it's a neat twist when you finally find out. In between is a fair amount of n-words, an interminably long torture scene, and general unpleasantness. It's a classic but so is the Hollywood Hogan vs Roddy Piper  "Age in the Cage" match at Halloween Havoc 1997.

#9. Kill Bill Vol 2 (4b) - One of the most well-built movies ever made, this has an entire other movie as setup to build up the climactic final battle between The Bride and the guy she's trying to kill, Bill. After all of that buildup, we get a final battle that lasts for seconds before abruptly coming to a halt. Matter of fact, given what an action tour-de-force the first one is, this movie only has one actual decent fight in it, the Daryl Hannah fight in the trailer. Considering it has 3 of the 5 villains, we got the short end of the stick in this movie. That one fight was a glimpse into what this movie was capable of and didn't deliver on. Outside of the lack of fights, the rest of the movie did have its moments, and it was good to finally see Bill after the first movie kept him hidden. Technically this is considered the second half of Tarantino's 4th movie, but it was a separate release a year later and it's getting ranked regardless.

#8. Django Unchained (7th) - A "revenge porn" movie. This is a rescue mission with some of the more interesting characters Tarantino has written. It's also a pretty unpleasant watch at times, and goes on about 40 minutes too long. Not sure if there are more brutal gory deaths or n-words belted out in this movie but there's a lot of 'em both. People who like hearing the n-word will basically have an all you can eat N-WORD BUFFET with n-words on top of n-words here. Thanks for making me have to say "n-word" over and over again like some kind of dork. Watch out for the p-word and the s-word! Surely you never want to encounter the z-word! All of that said...it's a good Western fable, the kind of campfire legend story that you might think is based on true events.

#7. Inglorious Basterds (6th) - Another "revenge porn" movie about killin' nyat-sees, as the main protagonist puts it, this is an alternate-universe WW2 story where the Nazi high command is menaced by an extra-military group led by Brad Pitt's big-jawed lieutenant (a guy who looks right out of the Sgt Slaughter playbook of mid 20th century gruff military stereotypes). Usually, alternate-history takes on WW2 have the Nazis winning and proceeding to usher in world domination, so it's interesting to see one where the war just sorta ends early. For an interesting duality, watch this after watching Brad Pitt's other WW2 movie from the same time period, Fury. That one is...significantly different and far more realistic. This movie on the other hand is comical by comparison. It's single-handedly saved from being lower on the list by Hans Lanza, the incredibly charismatic villain.

#6. Death Proof (5th) - This one got overshadowed heavily by being bundled with Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror as a double-feature. Most people preferred the Double R joint and I even heard from people who went back for a re-watch and only watched that half of the feature, not even bothering with rewatching Death Proof. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and say that this movie is awesome and I like it a lot more than Planet Terror. That's right, I said it. Having noted stuntwoman Zoe Bell (playing the role of herself) be the main foil to Kurt Russell's insane stuntman character was a great choice, especially after she did most of Uma Thurman's stunts in the two Kill Bill movies (getting badly injured in the process). I'd be hard-pressed to not like anything with Kurt Russell in it already, and there's a great cast of women playing off of him here.

The downside to this movie is that the middle third or so of the movie is an interminably boring sequence of the characters basically talking about nothing. It was unnecessary in the movie on its own, and I can't imagine having to watch that part in a theater after just watching another movie before this. They could have probably trimmed about 30 minutes off of this. Tarantino's main weakness (besides overuse of The N-Word, and being a general weirdo) is that his movies sometimes have these long self-indulgent dialogue sequences that the audience has to sit through, with characters talking about things that he cares about but 99% of the audience won't. This movie is helped a lot by two things though: Julia's legs in the first half and Zoe Bell in the second half. Even being the (according to most people, but not me) worst Tarantino movie is still being a really good movie.

Fun Fact: This is the very last Quentin Tarantino movie I ever got around to, only watching it during the process of making this list.

#5. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (9th) - Yet another "revenge porn" sort of movie, this one rewrites the history of the Manson Family slaying young actress Sharon Tate. This time, things go a bit differently, and Sharon Tate gets some justice. Extra care is taken to brutalize "Sadie", which if you know the story, you know Tarantino did that very deliberately. That overarching point of the movie is really just a background story for most of the runtime, though, and most of it follows various characters as they simply navigate life in Hollywood in the late 1960's. Pretty much every scene is interesting and the characters tend to be very relatable. It's just a solid as hell production all around. Fun Fact: This is the one movie that physically makes me want to smoke, due to the relentless promotion of the fictional "Red Apple cigarettes". Come to think of it, all of his movies have too much smoking, which must be rough for people trying to quit, or have quit (for the 10th time).

#4. Jackie Brown (3rd) - A thoroughly enjoyable tale that no doubt served as a vehicle to get Pam Grier the kind of movie role she should have gotten a lot sooner. This one's a little harder to keep track of than the other movies on this list, but it rewards you for paying attention. It's also quite long, and once you've seen the twists once, it has less punch. As a result, it nearly fell to the #5 spot since I feel like Once Upon holds up better on repeat viewings. However, Jackie Brown is just a great movie that it took me way too long to watch in full. While Pulp Fiction is full of likeable characters, this movie is full of terrible people and they've all got an angle. See also: Reservoir Dogs. Only unlike that movie, this one does give you somebody to root for as it goes on.

#3. Kill Bill Vol 1 (4a) - From an action perspective, this is the best movie on the list. Gogo's walk down the stairs is something that lives in my head rent-free. Putting aside how she's like 16 in the movie. At least that freak Tarantino resisted the urge to show off her feet. Regardless, this is a compelling story with a very simple premise. Most of these movies jump around with the narrative, often telling several stories that all end up converging in the final act Dragon Quest IV style. This one is very focused on telling the sole tale, with flashbacks to add context to the present. The extended battle with the Crazy 88, culminating with a moonlit katana duel in the snow, is what really made this movie great and lands it so high on the list. It's great setup with a great payoff. I wish the second movie, which continued the great setup, could have topped this with another, even greater payoff.

I'll give the movie this caveat though: If the two movies were combined into one big movie, it would probably land at #1.

#2. Pulp Fiction (2nd) - The first movie of his that I ever saw (unless you count True Romance) and as such, I'm very biased. There was a long time when they were my two favorite movies outside of Big Trouble In Little China. Even revisiting this movie in more recent years, it's as good as I remember. A series of separate but interconnected short stories, each with compelling characters and settings, culminating in Samuel Jackson's stirring speech about being a better person. This movie probably single-handedly gave me my trait of liking diners. What the hell was up with The Gimp, though? Like, who the fuck was that and what was he doing in a box?

#1. The Hateful Eight (8th) - This is an all-out homage to John Carpenter's The Thing, which is probably my favorite movie of all time if I had to choose one. It's an isolated setting in the dead of winter, where "nobody trusts anybody" and anyone could be...someone they don't appear to be. They went so far as to bring in the same composer from The Thing, Ennio Morricone, AND use unused tracks he already made for the John Carpenter movie.

Putting aside how closely-related this is to my favorite movie, it can sure stand on its own too. It has a tension all throughout that very few movies ever manage to achieve even half of. At first the players might not be all that clear, but by the end of the first act it's apparent what the stakes are. Sometimes you know things that the characters don't, sometimes you're wondering right along with them; either way, the tension is ever-present. It's also a bit of a sequel to Django Unchained. Not really, but similar enough.

Special mention needs to be made to how damn good-looking this movie is. It's the Bluepoint Demon Souls Remake of movies. Every shot is beautiful, with vibrant illumination and entrancing, colorful environments. While the difference with regular Blu-Ray is often negligible for those of us who don't sit right in front of the TV, this is one thing that is totally worth seeing in 4K Blu-Ray. The way this was filmed reminds me of the incredible-looking movies of yesteryear, things like Ben Hur. Which I believe was the intention, a "no expenses spared" sort of operation.